Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. A captivating look at a small but significant piece of military and civil rights history. Known for telling overlooked true stories of extraordinary people who have shaped our world, Tanya Lee Stone has threaded themes of female empowerment throughout her body of award-winning work for nearly 20 years. While they didn’t see combat (they were instead sent out West to become smoke jumpers), Stone’s final chapters reveal how the Triple Nickles’ service helped integrate both the military and society at large. Myriad quotations from personal interviews and more than 100 b&w photos reveal the heroism and perseverance of these groundbreaking men. Set against the entrenched racism of the 1940s, the nine chapters include asides about media stereotypes regarding African-Americans and how photographs of black soldiers were often left out of the military record. With black-and-white pictures and personal anecdotes, Almost Astronauts weaves biographies of the female pilots into a larger history of the 1960s and changing gender roles. More than just an account of their endeavors during WWII, the narrative takes on a broader perspective as it contextualizes the story of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. As Cobb and the other 'Mercury 13' women - dubbed 'Astrodolls' and 'Astronettes' by the media - discovered, they were ahead of their time by nearly 40 years. Stone (Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream) opens with an enticing question, “What is it like to jump out of an airplane?” The answer, which lets readers imagine doing just that as a paratrooper, will immediately draw them into this thorough story of the U.S.

Almost astronauts by tanya lee stone